A Year to Remember
by Duchess131
Summary: Who knew chess could do that to people? Of course, James and Sirius are an exception to most rules of life. One strange game, one impossile deal, one crazy month. Leah Black never knew that they could change her friends' lives in an unexpected way.
1. Pranks and Arguing

This is their seventh year, so the Marauders are already animagi, and they have their nicknames. All the memories in books 5 and seven have happened.

(I have details about Leah and Emma on my profile.)

**Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. Therefore, I own nothing in this story except for Leah and Emma.**

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Pranks and Arguing

This summer I finally got around to buying myself a diary, something that I have been trying to do for five years, but obviously failing. I think that this is going to be a great year with a whole lot of pranks, rather a lot of arguing, and graduation at the end of the year, so that's why I'm planning to write every single moment of it down in this diary. The great thing is that nobody except for me can read it unless they really want to forget everything that they have to do for the next week, thanks to a charm I put on it. I was feeling pretty happy with myself, because it's actually a very advanced charm, even for a seventh year. That was, until Sirius decided to tell me that I would probably give it to someone else to read, but completely forget to take the charm off, so that the unsuspecting reader of the diary would have no memory for the next week. Brothers are like that.

I just looked back at that paragraph and realized that I was ranting about something really stupid, so I'm going to stop now and say a little about me, just in case I take the charm off, and the random people reading this have no clue who I am. Wait...that's creepy. If I take the charm off before I die, that means that if Sirius was still alive, he could find out everything that I think about, well, everything. Okay, I've decided that I will NEVER, under any conditions, take that charm off. EVER!!

Great! I'm ranting yet again. Okay, back to the original subject. My name is Leanna Black, but I prefer to be called Leah. Sirius Black is my (extremely annoying, but still fun to be around) twin brother. I don't like admitting it, but he's older than me by seven minutes. We were born on April 7, 1958. My best friends are Lily Evans and Emma Halvers, as well as Sirius's friends James Potter and Remus Lupin. He has another friend, Peter Pettigrew, but we don't get along very well. I am in my seventh year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and I am in Gryffindor House. By the way…GRYFFINDOR RULES! If you don't believe it, you shouldn't be reading this.

I love Quidditch (sadly I can't play because I'm scared of heights, so I'd probably fall off the broom), reading, and animals. I also tend to be rather forgetful, something Sirius likes to tease me about, but I can actually remember the exact conversations that I have every day, which is weird. I absolutely hate Severus Snape because he is the most evil, annoying, and disgusting (when was the last time he washed his hair?) person in the whole entire universe.

Anyway, that's enough about me for now. I need to write down everything about the prank. It all started when we were sitting on the train, and we realized that we were missing two people.

"Where's Peter," Sirius asked.

"I don't know," I said, "Remus?"

"He's sick," Remus said, "But what I really want to know is where James is."

"He's Head Boy," Sirius said with a grin.

"You-you're not serious, are you."

"Of course he is," I said indignantly, "I thought we worked that out ages ago." It took me a little while to realize that I wasn't the only one who had spoken.

"Prongs," Remus said, ignoring the overused pun, "Are you really Head Boy?"

"Of course I am," James said, "I mean, I thought it was kind of weird, but I'm happy about it now."

"James, did you just say that you're happy about being Head Boy?" Sirius asked him. He nodded. We were just exchanging confused looks when and idea struck me.

"I know why he's so happy," I said, "It's because Lily is the Head Girl and he's just glad for more chances to ask her out."

"Exactly," James said.

'Why don't we hang the Slytherins upside down from the ceiling?" Sirius said simply. When we all gave him weird looks, he sighed,

"You know, for the prank."

I thought for a moment before saying, "I think that's a great idea." I don't know what I was expecting to follow that statement, but the stunned silence in the compartment definitely wasn't it.

"Am I imagining things, or did Leah just _agree _with Sirius?" James said slowly.

"You're not imagining anything," Remus assured him dryly, "Leah just agreed with something Sirius said." Sirius and I glared at them.

"We do agree occasionally, it's not like the world's ending," we said simultaneously. I glared at Sirius. I _hate_ it when he says the same things I do.

"Why do you always say the same things that I do? I snapped.

"I don't say the same things you do; _you_ say the same things that _I_ do!" he retorted.

"I do not!" I said indignantly.

"Yes, you do," he said.

"I don't!" I snapped.

"You do!" he snapped back.

"Don't!"

"Do!"

"Don't!"

"Do!"

"Don't!"

"Do!"

"SHUT UP!" Remus yelled. Now, _that _got our attention, considering that Remus doesn't yell too much, "I hate it when you argue like that," he said simply.

"Are you two arguing _again_?" Lily Evans has an exasperated look on her face whenever she says this-which is actually rather a lot. She walked into our compartment, apparently not noticing James sitting in the corner.

"We sure are," Sirius and I said at the same time. I opened my mouth.

"Don't even start," Lily and Remus said. We all burst into laughter. That is something that happens rather a lot with us seventh year Gryffindors. Everything we say seems to be funny.

Once we recovered from our laughing fit, James said,

"Hey, Evans, do you mind leaving so that we can take care of some business, and do you want to go to Hogsmeade with me when we plan a weekend?"

Lily gave him a disgusted look, said, "No and _No_!" before stalking out.

"If you want her to go out with you so badly, you can at least be a little nicer to her. And call her Lily," I said. James doesn't seem to get it, but he's more likely to get her to go out with him if he calls her by her first name.

Ignoring me, James said, "So, we're definitely hanging the Slytherins from the ceiling." Everyone nodded.

I said, "I think we should hang their food from the ceiling with them, so that they can't eat."

"But, then their food would splatter all over everyone else," Remus said.

"Good point." We had been sitting in silence for a while, when Sirius suddenly shouted, "I know! We hang their food from the ceiling and watch them try to eat it!" We all began laughing at the hilarious mental picture this idea produced.

"That's definitely the plan," I gasped, to nods and grins from everyone else.

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It seemed to take ages for the Sorting Ceremony to finish, and we _still_ had to listen to Professor Dumbledore's speech, which seemed longer than ever this year. I did notice that he was looking at James, Sirius, Remus, and me when he said the part about not going into the Forbidden Forest. I think that's ridiculous, because there's really nothing dangerous about the Forest if you know your way around.

When Professor Dumbledore finished his speech, the four present Marauders grinned evilly at each other.

"1…2…3," James said.

At exactly the same moment the food appeared, we all pulled out our wands and flicked them under the table. Every single Slytherin flew into the air to dangle helplessly from the ceiling of the Great Hall by their feet. Immediately, the Gryffindors, Ravenclaws, and Hufflepuffs burst into laughter at the sight of the Slytherins attempting to eat their food upside down without dropping it all. We laughed, and laughed, and laughed. In fact, we might have gone on laughing through the whole entire feast if Snivellus hadn't gone and _accidentally_ dropped his fork. Yeah, right. I think he did it on purpose. It would be just like him.

Well, anyway, the fork that he dropped, whether accidentally or on purpose, nearly stabbed a third year Ravenclaw in the head, so Professor Dumbledore asked whoever was doing the prank (He said this to the whole Hall, even though I'm sure he knew it was us. Naturally, Sirius disagrees with me.) to please let the Slytherins down, which we did, much to the dismay of the majority of the Great Hall.

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I walked back to the Gryffindor common room with Lily and Emma. We were all laughing and talking about the prank. They had, of course, figured out that we did it, because they know that we play a prank at the beginning of every school year.

"It was all brilliant!" Emma said.

"Except for the part where Snape nearly got that Ravenclaw with his fork," I said, annoyed. I still can't believe he ruined our prank. Okay, maybe I _can _believe it, but that doesn't make it any less annoying.

"Yeah, that scared me," Lily said, and we nodded in agreement.

"So, to change the topic," I said, looking at Lily, "Can you believe that _James_ is Head Boy?"

"Potter's Head Boy?" Emma said, disbelief evident on her face.

"Sadly, yes," Lily said, "I don't know how I'm going to survive a whole year working with him. Every time we have to get together to plan something, he'll ask me out. He'll want to have a Hogsmeade weekend every day so that he has even _more_ chances to ask me out. I don't know how I'll make it."

"I think you might be exaggerating a little bit there, Lily," Emma said.

"Besides," I put in, "Maybe something will happen this year, and you'll decide that you really like him."

"The only thing that could happen that would make me go out with Potter even once is me hitting my head and going insane," Lily said firmly.

"Whatever you say," I said cheerfully, then headed up to bed.

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I'm really tired, so I'll make this brief. I, regardless of what I wrote earlier, do plan on taking the charm off. I also have planned to have someone read this. As long as their name isn't Sirius. Maybe I should consider putting a new charm on this thing once the old one's off for good. I don't think I need to say what it is.


	2. Mashed Potatoes and Muddy Leaves

Mashed Potatoes and Muddy Leaves

I have decided that, since I am planning to take the charm off and let people read this, I will write it as if I am talking to a person. It will leave much more room for me to be funny, which is something that I love.

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"Professor Dumbledore must think our pranks are amusing," I told Emma and Remus at breakfast the next day, "He doesn't ever tell anyone that he knows we did them."

"That's because he _doesn't_ know," Sirius said from behind me.

"Yes, he does," I said, "It was pretty obvious from the look on his face."

"No, it isn't. If he knew, he would've done something about it by now."

"Unless, of course, he thinks that they're funny, so he doesn't do anything because he wants us to keep doing them," I said.

Sirius and I have had this argument about fifty million times. It's usually the same every time we have it. Little did I know, this argument was going to result in one of the most fun things I've ever done in my life. The…well, you'll have to keep reading to find out.

"I still don't think he knows," Sirius said _yet again_.

"He knows," I stated, "Accept it and go eat with James."

"I'm not leaving until you tell me that I'm right," he said with an evil grin.

"Yes you-" I stopped.(Talking, that is. None of the rest of me stopped.)

Now, you may have wondered why, exactly, I stopped talking at that particular moment. The reason might seem a little strange, but I'll say it anyway. Mashed potatoes. Yes, you read that right. There was a mound of mashed potatoes on my plate, which is strange because I hate mashed potatoes. Well, however those mashed potatoes got there, I'm a little annoyed with them for getting five points taken from Gryffindor. Okay, maybe that was me, but still…I'll get to that later.

When I had stopped thinking about that strange incident, I realized that the same exact thing had captured Sirius's attention.

"Leah," he said. I could tell he was confused. Well, so was I.

"Why do you have mashed potatoes on your plate. You hate them." I was just about to tell him that I had no clue why there were mashed potatoes on my plate, when an idea struck me. The very same idea that started the…Sorry, can't say yet.

"Why would I hate mashed potatoes. They're practically perfect," I said. Sirius looked at me like I was insane. Maybe I was.

"You think they taste disgusting," he said, bewildered.

"But why would I eat them. That's not what they're for," I said. Sirius is still giving me the look.

"Mashed potatoes," I said, digging my spoon into the mess on my plate, "Are primarily used for throwing at an annoying boy named Sirius Black to get him to leave his sister alone." I raised the spoon threateningly.

Didn't work.

"I'm still not leaving," Sirius stated stubbornly. I flicked again. He fled down the table to go eat with James, a fresh glob of mashed potatoes stuck fast to his robes in the middle of his back.

I didn't mean to actually throw the mashed potatoes, but my spoon got a _little_ out of control. Okay, maybe extremely out of control, but the point is that my brother has a giant spot of mashed potatoes on his back, and he doesn't even realize it.

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"Can you believe that Sirius still doesn't realize that he has mashed potatoes on his back," I whispered to James before Transfiguration, "Maybe you should tell him before the Slytherins come along."

"Yeah," James said, "It would be rather embarrassing."

"It will be anyway," I whispered, "Can you please just tell him." He grinned, and walked off. I took that for a yes.

As I look back on this day, I think about what could have happened if James had reached Sirius just a second earlier. On the upside, Gryffindor would have five points more than it does now, but on the downside, I wouldn't have been able to take part in the…thing.

Anyway, just as James was about to reach Sirius, a voice rang out over all the noise.

"Mr. Black, why on earth do you have mashed potatoes on the back of your robes."

That voice belonged to, as you probably have guessed, Professor McGonagall.

"I do not," Sirius said indignantly. That phrase has been said rather a lot lately. Maybe I should start keeping track of the number of times we say that. Or maybe that would just be a waste of time.

As I surfaced from my thoughts of what Sirius would do to me when he figured out that he had mashed potatoes on his back, I found that he had figured out he had mashed potatoes on his back.

"So, now that we have confirmed that there are indeed mashed potatoes on your back, could you please tell me how they got there," Professor McGonagall said.

"My sister threw them at me." At this, all heads turn to look at me.

"Because he was being a git," I said before McGonagall could even open her mouth.

"So, you threw mashed potatoes at him, and didn't tell him, because he was being a git," McGonagall said slowly.

"And he deserved it," I added helpfully.

"Okay," McGonagall said before lapsing into silence. I could tell she was confused and trying to hide it, "You threw mashed potatoes at Mr. Black because he was being a git and he deserved it."

"Exactly," I said, glad that she figured it out.

"And, what was he doing that made him a git?"

"That, I'm afraid, I can't tell you," I said with another evil grin.

"You weren't arguing again, were you?" she asked suspiciously.

"Why does everyone always assume that we're arguing?' I said, exasperated.

"Because you always are," James yelled from the other side of the room. That made everyone laugh. Everyone that is, except Sirius and me. And, of course, Professor McGonagall, who looked even more annoyed than earlier. I didn't even know it was possible.

"You were arguing again," she said flatly.

"We weren't. Besides, even if we were, it doesn't really concern you," I said, hiding the fact that I was thoroughly annoyed. She just gave me that annoying look and said in that annoying voice,

"Five points from Gryffindor."

Sirius was, at that point, glaring at me like it was my fault, when he _knew_ it was his fault.

That is the strange story about how a spoonful of mashed potatoes took five points away from Gryffindor.

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"I can't believe I have to do my Head Girl duties with Potter. Potter, of all people!" Lily was mad. Very mad. She was mad because she had to spend time with James, and she was definitely ranting about it.

"Who knows what he'll do to this school," she continued, "I'll have to be in the same room with him, and find a way to get rid of all his stupid ideas. I'll never make it."

"Would you like us to get your grave ready?" I said sarcastically.

'He'll probably listen to everything you want to do," Emma said, "because he'll think it'll make you want to go out with him."

"As if," Lily snapped.

"We get the point, Lily," I said at exactly the same time something soft and dirty hit my back. I looked around to find that a very large amount of leaves stuck together with mud was stuck on my back.

"Sirius," I growled, and went off in the direction of my evil laughing brother. Unfortunately for me, he saw me coming, and ran.

But not before I had thrown my own pile of muddy leaves at him. And missed. And hit Severus Snape instead. Snape looked up, saw James sitting under the nearest tree, and glared. He then picked up a pile of muddy leaves and chucked them at James. They hit their mark.

"Padfoot!" James yelled, "I thought you were supposed to throw the leaves at your sister, not me."

"But I didn-". SPLAT! Sirius had a mass of muddy leaves on his face. He promptly wiped them off and screamed, "LEAH!"

Hey, since when was it my fault.

SPLAT! yet again. It was supposed to hit me, but it hit Lily instead. BIG mistake on Sirius's part.

"BLACK! NEVER THROW ANYTHING AT ME AGAIN IF YOU VALUE YOUR LIFE!"

BIG, BIG mistake. I was debating whether I should go out and help Sirius, when I heard a SPLAT!, and felt a muddy substance slide down my back. I turned to see James grinning like a maniac. I was mad. Madder than Lily, if that was even possible. I hate it when people sneak up on me. Especially if they throw something at me. I advanced on him.

"You'd better scat, before I make you," I snapped. He scatted. I gathered up the biggest handful of muddy leaves that I could, and heaved. I meant to just hit James, but they scattered everywhere and hit everyone within a fifteen-foot range.

They, needless to say, weren't too happy, and promptly began throwing muddy leaves at their neighbors, clearly suspecting them of having thrown them at them. This was brilliant. In fact, it was probably the most brilliant thing Sirius has ever done in his life, because he, of course, started it when he threw leaves at me.

Suddenly, I was brought back into reality by a shout and yet another SPLAT! on the back of my robes. I turned around, glared at Sirius, and made another throw. Later, I would learn that it was actually James that had hit me. Even if I had known, I still would have thrown them at Sirius, if only for the enjoyment of it.

"HEY", he yelled, "I didn't do anything!"

"Well, I didn't do anything either, so we're even!"

"Yes, you did!" Sirius yelled.

"Then what!" I snapped at him, trying to figure out why he was so mad.

"We throw more-"

"No, I meant, what did I do?" I said patiently.

"YOU THREW MASHED POTATOES AT ME!" he yelled as loud as he could.

"There's no need to start a war over it," I said.

"I didn…Well, maybe I did, but, still, that's not the point."

With that, he threw the largest armful of muddy leaves I have ever seen in my life. Straight at me. And, unfortunately for me, his aim was a little better than mine. They hit me right on target.

"SIRIUS, YOU'RE GOING TO PAY FOR THAT!" I yelled. Loud. As loud as I possibly could, which turned just about every head on the grounds.

I threw some more muddy leaves at Sirius, and this time, they hit their mark. He threw a pile back at me, missed, and hit a random Ravenclaw watching the proceedings.

Even now I have no clue how it happened, but somehow, when that particular pile of muddy leaves hit its mark, the whole entire population of the Hogwarts grounds started throwing muddy leaves at each other.

I grinned, chucked some leaves at Sirius, and dove straight into the fight.

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So that is the great mystery event I have nearly slipped out to you several times before. The Great, Brilliant, Muddy Leaf War of 1977. I will never forget it as long as I live. Sirius is even happier because he started it, but it was so much fun that it doesn't really matter anymore. I've got better things to think about than him at the moment.

Like, the fact that I had a pile of mashed potatoes on my plate at breakfast and I _still_ have no clue how they got there. We didn't even have mashed potatoes on the table. Oh, well. I guess some mysteries aren't meant to be solved. (The mystery of how to get Lily to go out with James is _not_ one of them.)


	3. Chess Games and Deals

Sorry it has taken so long to update. I've been really busy lately with homework and other school related things, so I haven't been able to think straight, let alone write.

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Chess Games and Deals

Thud!

"Ha! Ha! Beat you _again!_"

"No you didn't, you used your queen, you idiot!"

"I did _not!_"

"Yes you _did!_"

"Prove it."

Silence

"Ha! It's impossible! The chessboard fell over!"

"You pushed it over!"

"_Excuse me, I did not!_"

"Yes y-Hey, Evans, want to-"

"_NO!_"

You, by now, are probably wondering if I have two demonic spirit voices arguing in my head. The answer, sadly, is no. These voices are my insane best friend, and my even insan_er _brother, fully showcasing their ability to act like complete idiots. (With, of course, a little help from Lily.)

Translation: James and Sirius were playing chess. James lost. Sirius overturned the chessboard in his "excitement". James thought that Sirius cheated and overturned the chessboard in an attempt to destroy the evidence. In the middle of the argument, James took a temporary break to ask Lily out. Lily, of course, took a temporary break from her walk across the common room to refuse. As loudly as possible.

My friends might be more insane than I am. They're definitely not as insane as Sirius, because that is not possible.

So, there I was, just sitting there, practically laughing my head off at the sheer stupidity of several of my friends, when the arguing started up again. This time, there were three voices.

"Evans, why won't you go out with me? It grieves me that you seem to hate me so much," the first voice, properly identified as James Potter, said

"Because I think that you are an arrogant git!" said the second voice, more commonly referred to as Lily Evans.

"What would it take for you to stop thinking that I'm an arrogant git?"

Whoa, first voice is sounding desperate. James Potter and desperate are words that you normally do not put in the same sentence.

"Easy. You to stop acting like one," Lily said, before stalking off. Second voice is annoyed.

Well, I was looking back on this part and I realized that it sounded really stupid, so I'm going to quit with the first voice, second voice thing. After I add third voice, of course.

"Wait a minute, Evans!" the infamous third voice, known to everyone as Sirius Black, yelled across the common room, "That's not enough information for Jamesie here to go on!"

Jamesie. Beautiful nickname there, Sirius.

James and Sirius ran after Lily, obviously planning to drag her back into the common room and see if they can get more information out of her. I decided that now would probably be a good time to intervene.

I jumped up, grabbed James and Sirius by the back of their robes, and pulled them away from Lily.

"Hey," Sirius protested, "We were just about to persuade Evans to go out with James."

"As if," Lily snapped contemptuously. I grinned.

"James, Sirius," I said calmly, "Why don't you go back to the fire and finish your little argument." They both stared at me like I was an idiot. And they actually got seven OWLs. Strange phenomenon isn't it.

"What argument?" Sirius asked.

"Yeah, we weren't having an-oh, _that_ argument," James said, "We played chess and Padfoot cheated."

"I did not!"

"Yes you did!"

I sighed. This was going to get annoying after a while, I knew.

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"I did not cheat!" Sirius yelled, loud enough for the whole world to hear. In reality, though, it's just the Gryffindor table. Several curious heads turned away from their dinners to see what was going on.

Sirius began explaining the reason for his exclamation to the helpless, unexpecting people next to him. Meanwhile, James was attempting to get Sirius's attention back on him. After several hard tugs on his robes, James was successful.

"You cheated."

"Did not."

"You did. Accept it."

"Never."

"Sirius, you cheated and you know it, so just admit it."

"Nev-Hey! Let's make a deal!"

"What kind of deal?" James asked suspiciously.

"A simple one," Sirius said, "All you have to do to get me to say that I cheated is to get Evans to go out with you in one month."

"That's what you call _simple_!" James yelled, "It's impossible, it's outrageous, it's…"

We never got to find out what else Sirius's deal was, because Lily had just gotten up to leave the Great Hall, prompting James into yelling, "You're on!" at the top of his lungs.

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"What do you mean, you forgot the invisibility cloak!" Sirius and I yelled at James several hours later. We were yelling at him because, somehow, in all of the excitement of the day, James had forgotten to bring the invisibility cloak on our latest outing.

And, let me tell you, an invisibility cloak is an extremely necessary piece of equipment to have when you're sneaking out of Hogwarts in the middle of the night, turning into your illegal Animagus form, and going down into a tunnel below an evil tree to be with your best friend who is a werewolf.

Fun, but quite dangerous if you have no invisibility cloak to protect you from Filch on a rampage. The very _thought_ makes me shudder.

"I forgot it because I was trying to ask Lily out, because I want you to admit that you cheated in our chess game, so it's your fault that I don't have the cloak."

Personally, I agree with James, but that might be just because I like blaming Sirius for things.

"It was not!"

"Yes it was!"

"Was not!"

"Was too!"

I don't now if it's just my imagination, or if James and Sirius are actually starting to sound like Sirius and me normally do.

"Filch is coming from over there," I hissed, pointing behind me. We all ran in the opposite direction as fast as possible.

Of course, Filch wasn't actually arguing from anywhere, I was-.

I just realized that I wrote arguing instead of coming. Doesn't take a genius to realize what my mind has been on lately.

So, anyway, Filch wasn't actually _coming_ from anywhere, I was just trying to distract James and Sirius from their argument.

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"Come on, James!" I snapped, striding purposefully toward the hospital wing, dragging a tired and confused James behind me.

"Tell me why, exactly, we are going to visit Remus this early in the morning, without waking up Sirius."

"Simple," I said, "We are going to talk about a certain deal you made with my brother at dinner a while back."

"Is there any chance we could have talked about this later?" James asked as we reached the hospital wing.

"Nope," I said, "Hey Remus."

Today he had very few scars, and he didn't look as pale as he normally did. I quickly explained Sirius's deal with James to him.

He grinned, "Of course I'll help you. You'll definitely need it."

"Yes!" I yelled, "We're going to get Sirius to admit something!"

"Do you ever think about anything else, Leah?" Remus said.

"Nope."

"So, do you two have any ideas?" James asked

"Well, for Lily to go out with you, you need to mature. That means fewer pranks, less hexing of random people, and being nicer to Lily. For now, I think you should start with the third one," I said.

"Okay," James said, looking thoughtful, "What can I do to be nicer to Evans."

"First of all," Remus said, "You can call her Lily."

"And," I added, "You can stop asking her out every time she turns around."

"I don't ask her out every time she turns around." James protested.

"Close enough," I said dismissively, "Do you think you can handle that, or do you want us to make it easier?"

"I can probably handle it perfectly, if, of course, one of you will let me copy your Transfiguration homework.

"Oh yeah, and no copying people's homework that they stayed up until 3:00 in the morning working on," I added.

"Fine," James pouted, "Be that way."

Remus and I burst into laughter, causing James to glare at us before stalking out of the hospital wing.

This is definitely going to be a very interesting month.


	4. Homework and Strange Feelings

Finally got around to updating. I was planning to do it over Christmas but I was too busy with horseback riding and attempting to teach myself how to play my new guitar.

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Homework and Strange Feelings

"Is it just me, or is Potter acting really strange?" Lily wondered.

"No clue, probably just you," I said.

"He hasn't asked me out in three days, and he actually called me Lily yesterday. It's just weird," Lily said.

"Don't know why that would be, Lily," I said absently, "Maybe he's just growing up."

"You wouldn't have anything to do with this, would you?" Lily asked suspiciously.

"No," I said, "Of course I don't have anything to do with James's strange personality change. Why would you think that?"

Lily narrowed her eyes, "Because you have a strange tendency to be involved in everything that you claim to not be involved in."

I winced inwardly. Lily knew me very well. We'd been friends ever since our first year, although we'd each had some difficulties with the other's best friends. (Snape, James, and Sirius) Eventually, we worked through all of that, but that's a story for another time. Right now I need to focus on how I got out of that mess with Lily.

"But this time it's different," I told her, "I'm not involved. James just decided that he really likes you, so he's maturing to get you to like him. Although he's still trying to copy Remus's Transfiguration homework. He had to hide it under his bed this morning"

"Isn't that kind of obvious," Lily said, confused.

"Yeah, it is, but James expects Remus to hide his homework somewhere not obvious, so he looked in all the not obvious places."

"Under his bed wasn't one of them." Lily said.

"The homework is still hidden," I replied, grinning, "I think he's getting it now."

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

"Found the hidden homework?" I asked Remus in the library several minutes later. Those of you who know me might wonder what I was doing in the library, seeing that it has never been one of my favorite places. The answer is that Remus dragged me there to talk about Lily's reaction to James's personality change, although we hadn't quite gotten there yet.

Remus grinned and held his homework up, "It's here and it's all done," he said.

"Mine's here too, and it's…not all done," I said, panicked, "Hey Remus, since I'm not trying to mature to get someone to go out with me, can I copy your homework?"

"No way," Remus said pushing me away as he put a protective arm over his homework, "Do not come within two meters of my homework."

Something really strange happened there, and I'm still not quite sure what. I had this weird feeling, sort of tingly, where Remus had touched my arm, and to my horror, I could feel myself slowly turning red. This had never happened to me around Remus before, but I knew that I had to get out of this library before I did something stupid.

"I-um-I have to go back to the common room to finish my homework," I said quickly. Remus just gave me his infamous 'you-think-you-can-fool-me-with-stupid-excuses-like-that' look. I absolutely hate that look. Rather a lot of people agree with me.

"You can finish it in here, you know," Remus said, "That is one of the general purposes of the library."

_Okay, think fast, say something not stupid,_ I thought.

"I need to get my book," I said. I got the look again.

"Just use mine," he said, "I'm done with it."

I was really panicking now. Remus wasn't falling for any of my excuses, and I really needed one to get me out of here. Suddenly the obvious solution came.

"I left part of the second half in my book." Not true.

"And I want to talk to Lily about something." Mainly my strange interaction with Remus.

"Why didn't you say that in the first place," Remus asked. I could tell he was confused.

"I didn't think about it," I said, and then I fled the library at the speed of light. Okay, maybe a little slower than that, but I still went pretty fast.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

"And then I went all red and had to come up with a bunch of stupid excuses to leave," I told Lily several minutes later. As soon as I finished the story, Lily started laughing.

"It's _not_ funny," I yelled. Lily got her laughter under control and gave me _her_ look. The look that says 'isn't it obvious'. It, too, is rather annoying.

"You like him," Lily stated. I was beginning to get annoyed.

"Of course I like him," I said indignantly, "He's my friend. He wouldn't be my friend if I hated him."

"I was talking about the _other_ kind of liking, Leah," Lily said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. And suddenly, it was.

"Oh," I said, "So…what do I do?" I asked, hoping that Lily had an answer, since I definitely didn't.

"Just wait and see," she said, "And try to avoid situations like the one in the library. Watch him when he's around you to see if there are any signs of him having the same feelings."

"And then what?" I asked.

"Well, if you're feeling daring, you could always ask him out," Lily said. I could tell she found the whole situation amusing.

"No bloody way," I said, "I am never going to ask anyone out. It's too embarrassing. I have to finish my homework now," I said, then I got up and fled to the girls' dormitory as quickly as possible. Are you starting to see a pattern here, because I sure am. I can just see it, "Leah Black's Foolproof Exit Strategy: Flee the area as fast as your legs can carry you."

I'm still trying to comprehend that conversation with Lily. The more I look back on my life at Hogwarts, the more it makes sense. I've always liked talking to Remus and I have occasionally caught myself staring at him during History of Magic when I'm not watching James stare at Lily. That's all he ever does during History of Magic. He's oblivious to the rest of the world. One time, Sirius actually whacked him over the head with his textbook. (And let me tell you, that thing is _huge_) He didn't even blink. Just kept on staring at Lily like there was no tomorrow.

So, seeing as I have nothing better to do than rant about James being to busy staring at Lily to do anything with us, I'll quit for the day and go to bed. (And for the record, I did finish my homework, and I finished it before Transfiguration. James did too. I thought that Professor McGonagall was going to faint when he handed it in.)

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Remus Lupin was thinking about Leah's strange behavior in the library. He had gone over the scene in his head at least a million times, but he couldn't think of a single reason to explain why she was acting so strange. After about thirty minutes of thinking he decided to take a different direction.

"Hey Sirius, something really strange happened in the library today," Remus told his friend.

"What do you mean strange?" Sirius asked, "Does it have something to do with a girl?"

"As a matter of fact, yes. We were having a normal conversation until I pushed her, and then she turned red and made up a bunch of really stupid excuses before practically flying out of the library," Remus said.

Sirius grinned at him. Remus could tell that he was attempting to hold in laughter.

"What?" he glared at Sirius.

"What exactly are your feelings about this particular girl?" Sirius asked, pushing his hair off of his face. It was at that moment that Remus realized how much Sirius and Leah looked like each other. They both had black hair with a habit of always falling into their face. Sirius used it to attract attention from girls by sweeping it off of his face dramatically, and Leah just let it fall.

On the occasional times that she would push it behind her ears, braid it, or pull it back some other way, Remus often found himself staring at her. Mainly her eyes, her face, that strange stalk that she had when she was walking away from an argument with Sirius. He had always told himself that he was just surprised at how different she looked, but now that he thought about it, Remus realized that that wasn't true.

"I think I'm in love with her," he suddenly blurted out. He blinked. He couldn't believe that he had actually said that. And in front of Sirius. He would kill Remus when he found out who he was talking about.

Sirius grinned, "You're in luck then, because she obviously likes you. All that you have to do is ask her to go to Hogsmeade with you next weekend."

"Are you sure?" Remus asked.

"Quite sure," Sirius said, "Trust me on this one, Moony."

Remus wasn't too sure about Sirius's theory, and he was dreading Sirius's reaction when he found out who this girl was, but he figured he might as well just test it out.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

I woke up in the middle of the night and started thinking about things. I have decided that tomorrow I will ask James and Sirius what Remus thinks about me. I might even take Lily's advice.

I will also tell James that we should probably stick with step one of our little project, because Lily is still a little confused about him. We should probably take things as slowly as we possibly can, but that's difficult, mainly due to the fact that we are attempting to do something in a month that should normally take about a year. I might also attempt to get Sirius to give us two or three months, because I can usually get him to do things when I'm really annoyed at him.

Right now I definitely am annoyed at him because he's basically put me in the middle of this whole Lily and James situation. James seems to expect me to know everything about Lily, which is why he trusts me on this plan. I'm afraid that it will go wrong, and then James might think that I don't want him to go out with Lily, which is not true. If Lily finds out that I'm part of the plan to make her go out with James, she'll probably kill me. Well, she might not kill me, but she'll definitely hate me.

Now that I'm finished with writing all of that, I'll attempt to stop worrying about it long enough to go to sleep. If I don't, though, I can always catch up (on sleep, not worrying) during _double_ History of Magic tomorrow. (Technically today, because it is 1:00 in the morning.) What are they trying to do? Torture us. I guess I'll sleep a bit, watch Sirius's various attempts to bring James back to Earth from that brilliant land where Lily loves him and they spend all their time together. I've heard him talking about it when he falls asleep in the common room.


End file.
